The Bangalore Water Supply and Sewerage Board (BWSSB) is quietly planning to "privatise or rather outsource" the maintenance of water pump houses that supply water to the city.
It recently placed an advertisement in newspapers inviting tenders for the annual maintenance of Cauvery Water Supply Scheme Stages 1, 2, 3 pump houses at Thorekadanahalli (TK Halli). The operation and maintenance of these pump houses were under the control of the board until now.
BWSSB engineers, however, insist that the tenders were invited only for repair, not maintenance.
"This is the second time we have invited tenders as there were no bidders the first time we called them two months ago. The repair of nine pumps at TK Halli was done by many contractors who took it up as piecework (small work). Now, we want to assign the repair to one contractor for a year," said Venkatesh S V, executive engineer, Cauvery head works division, BWSSB. He denied that the board was planning to outsource the work.
A former engineer, who had ...

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